As Caron has explained, Autumn Conference will take place online from 25th to 28th September. I have been watching the developments with a lot of interest, because I was a member of the Federal Conference Committee for five years until I stood down at the end of last year.

I loved being on the committee, but it completely took over my time at Conference. Committee members were on a rota to chair and aide motion debates in the hall, to chair speeches and Q&As from the main stage and spokespersons’ sessions elsewhere, and to attend various events for first time attendees and others. For each debate we would usually need the same amount of time in advance to read through the speakers’ cards and construct a balanced discussion. On top of that there was training to remind us of the niceties of the standing orders, and how to deal with requests for counted votes, referrals back etc, plus a daily briefing meeting. It made life busy, and I found I missed some of the other delights of conference, such as sitting around and chatting with old friends, but I did enjoy doing it.

I was really looking forward to York in March and the opportunity to just wander around Conference with no commitments for the first time in six years. When that was cancelled, Brighton was on my radar for the Autumn. That will now be a rather different experience from what I was expecting.

On the committee we were often asked if members could have remote access to Conference and in particular to remote voting on motions. That would make the conference more accessible to people who couldn’t attend in person for employment or financial reasons.

The main hall motions and speeches have been broadcast online by the party for some years, in addition to any coverage on BBC Parliament. But online voting was always going to be more difficult to set up because people would have to register and be vetted like any other attendee. Our budget, and indeed the time available within the Conference Office, was always quite limited, and there would have been a greater cost involved than some members realised. On top of that, there was a view that people really should attend the debate before voting and there was no guarantee that anyone voting online had paid any attention to the discussion.

Lockdown has now provided the opportunity to do the experiment and move the whole conference online. If it works in September this will hopefully change the long term pattern of Conference and make it more inclusive by allowing some people to participate without the expense of hotels and travel.

Conference is a complex event; there are motions and voting in the main hall, fringe meetings, consultative sessions, exhibition and networking all happening in parallel. Although we are all now aware of the usefulness (and drawbacks) of Zoom and Microsoft Teams, neither provide the resources to manage such a large event. It requires a scaled up solution, which will not come free.

The Committee has gone with a system called Hopin, which looks very impressive. It can handle events with up to 100,000 participants, and offers facilities for main hall debates with online voting, for speeches and fringe meetings, for an exhibition and for random networking. There’s a full explanation about how it will work on the party website. Such solutions are not cheap, so there will still be a cost, though I imagine that registration will be cheaper than usual.

Conference will be a different experience this year. It will not be as immersive. Being away from home normally means that I focus entirely on Conference, with just the occasional walk on the beach. I am sure I will drop in and out of the online Conference; I can’t imagine spending the same time with it as I would in person. Apart from anything else, it would be a very sedentary experience, whereas at a normal Conference my step rate is pretty high as I trek from one venue to another.

I am looking forward to it, even though it means I won’t get a chance to meet you in person.

Please note

We have been in full self-isolation since 16th March to protect my husband whose immune system is compromised.

If you are in self-isolation then join the Lib Dems in self-isolation Facebook group.

You can find my previous Isolation diaries here.

* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.